FDM 3D printers have trouble printing anything with any sort of clarity. Translucency is simple, but because of layers and internal geometry clear filament basically makes a heap of tiny lenses that readily hinder transparency. It certainly would be cool to have it clear, but he would need to pursue a different manufacturing technique to do so.
You are right, but it doesn't have to be perfectly clear. In my experiance with clear PETG you still should be able to see something move inside, which would be good enough (for me at least).
@Forever13 pt I just applied some silicon spray on a transparent PETG camera mount i printed some days ago (just to make sure)... nothing melting. I generaly prefer PETG over PLA.
Tom, did you model threads in the CAD design? Modeling threads, then "cleaning" them up a bit by running a tap down the part before assembly works beautifully. Your reaction at 12:58 when you realize that your diaphragm design works is absolutely priceless. This is one of the best things about your content. Your personality coming through, your creativity/ideas, and your trial and error approach. Did you consider a needle valve for fine control? Gate and ball valves are rubbish for precise control, and diaphragms wear and fail. Three other things: 1)The O-ring seal in the quick-connect fitting on your granddad's air hose might need replacing. 2) Use PTFE tape around the quick connect adapter in your 3D printed mount. This is the type of tape used in natural gas applications (as opposed to the standard teflon tape used in plumbing [fluid] applications). 3) Place a reservoir tank between your granddad's compressor and the air motor. This will deliver smooth air flow vs. surges that are experienced when being fed directly from the compressor (even though there's a pressure regulator in-line). Also, WD-40 is a brand. Many mistakenly use the original formulation as a lubricant. "WD" is short for water displacement, and 40 designates the 40th formulation. The original WD-40 is actually a solvent, not a lubricant, and shouldn't be used as such. Lastly, Mr. Stanton, please be sure to always wear your personal protective equipment! Glad the WD-40 didn't hurt your eyes. Keep up the great work.
John Coloe John Coloe I agree with you on everything except the WD 40 part, the silicone lubricant he is using isn't a solvent (I have tested it extensively with gas powered bolts and pistols) it's just made by the same company and is perfectly safe for plastic/oring applications
The throttle is acting against the pressure unfortunately so you'll need some force to actuate it. While if you go for a sliding orifice plate acting like a kind of venturi, you basically won't have any force required to actuate it. Other idea is if you have a venturi with a sliding orifice plate, you can actually put an atmospheric air intake from the venturi low pressure area to suck ambient air at low speeds. This will increase a lot the range of your motor. The idea is coming from the way inflatable slides are inflated on commercial planes. The compressed air can does not contain enough air to inflate the slide and relies on what I described before to get more air into the slide.
I agree with this and would have used all those terms and special words and everything. Actually I lied, I thought it was the drop down masks using human panic breathing to inflate the slides.
I like that idea. Similar to how the dyson "bladeless" fan works, or how paint spray guns work. The fast moving air draws in more outside air by inducing flow.
I think there is too much back pressure for a venturi that sucks in athmospheric air; Besides I think he might be able to balance the diaphragm valve by pressurising the top chamber too, balancing out the forces.
This is a good idea... If you are trying to move bulk air in some kind of blower. For a compressed air engine it's a terrible idea. How to explain? In any theoretical engine schematic you have a box (insert engine of any kind here), transferring energy from a source to a sink in order to do work. The point is that you are taking high grade energy and turning it into low grade energy. That's the only way energy flows. In the case of the Dyson or blower, the sink is atmospheric pressure, so your high pressure jet does work accelerating a bunch more air & dumping it to atmosphere. Inside the cylinder of a compressed air engine, the pressure is significantly higher than atmosphere in order to do work forcing the piston down. Once the piston is down, it dumps relatively high pressure air to atmosphere because it's terribly inefficient. But that's an aside. High pressure above the piston: insert your venturi upstream of the piston, guess where the air is going? Yup, backwards out of the venturi. Venturis only work in relatively low pressure environments, or where the flow rate is so high it can create a negative pressure in the venturi tube. The flowrates in this engine are relatively low, so it couldn't work.
I literally went on RUclips to see if you had uploaded a new video, found out you had uploaded one 5 minutes ago with 70 views. I'm psyched! You can make videos about your compressed air engines for the next year as far as I'm concerned.
I always marvel at folks that will put all their time and energy into creating/building/inventing and learning about things around them. These are the people (not a whole lot of them) that makes our lives and surroundings easier, better and more accessible. These folks are driven to create solely on their own and have enormous stamina, intelligence and attention to detail to make a thought or dream come true. God bless people like you young man, I hope you live a long exciting and happy life and because of your natural God given talents you will surely do so. I’m 70 years old and have seen and experienced a lot and feel I can speak in this manner. Keep your eyes and mind open Sir. I am now a subscriber and will enjoy all your work, thank you for sharing.
The thing is, this channel is about what you love doing and the people watching your videos love to see you doing what you love doing! So, don’t be concerned too much with what we want to see and instead just show us what you’re passionate about, what inspires you. That’s the reason why we’re here!
You could add an idle valve like on a carburetted engine. A small hole with rubber and a screw up against it might work. That way you could completely shut down the flow with the throttle without killing the engine.
Well done. Looking forward to the car version of the engine. Glad to see you finally got a compressor, even if only on loan from your grandfather. Quick disconnect fittings can leak. I have some touchy ones in my shop. Sometimes it is due to variations of tolerance if the fitting and disconnect are not made by the same company. Sometime the spring gets weak or the seal leaks. I would remove the disconnect and clean it out in case there is dust/dirt on the seal. Another option for lubrication is a dry teflon spray. Another option for a valve is a needle valve. Back in the days when the UK made cars, lots of cars had Stromberg or SU carburetors. They had needle valves to control the fuel which was mixed with the air. Dave.
It doesnt fly full throttle. Whats it gonna help with a slower prop? He needs a pnuematic dental drill head. They use little air compression with high speed and torque. And about 1/4 the weight compared to the mean machine he's ready to work with.
@@AngryHybridApe The point is not for him to make a perfect engine, it’s him having fun and learning. Before you insult his creation, could you design anything better with 3D printing?
@@alrightkewl8235 Ok. I sorry I called it a POS. Studing anything is always a learning process. Wether its what to do or what not to do, somethings you already know, some things you didnt. Sometimes even learn something serendipty and it answers a lot of questions. Always learning.
I really think a rotery type engine would work better with air power. Something with multiple chambers that directly drive the prop. Any thoughts on this? I wish I could draw out what I have in my head. But I'm sure you guys could come up with something even better.
Anchor Bait en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotary_engine There are multiple types of rotary engines. The oldest version had the driveshaft hard mounted to the airframe and the engine and prop spun as a single unit (looks absolutely nuts to modern eyes). Second version is the pistonless or Wankel rotary of RX-7 and RX-8 fame. There is a third type that gets mistaken for a rotary. This is the Radial engine type that was used in many WW2 era aircraft.
There is a design on Thingiverse for a 5-cylinder Radial engine. It appears to be quite powerful. However, I greatly enjoy watching the development work Tom is doing, and would love to see how far he can push his own creation.
Seeing your videos has really revamped my motivation to use my 3d printer for fun and neat projects, almost more so than Ivan Miranda, because I only have 1 printer with a small build plate, and most of what he does is huge. Your builds seem more reasonably sized, and with the tolerances and quality I've tuned my printer to, I want to make things like this. You're a brilliant person, and I truly admire the way you and Ivan Miranda tinker, design, model, and print beautiful and functional creations, and that you put in the time to film and edit videos as you do so to share with the rest of the world.
Worth watching just to see Tom's face when he first sees the engine slow down as he pushes down the valve piston, pure joy. Lovely bit of engineering Tom, great!
I’d love to see a V8 air powered engine but that’s a lot of work of course, and would absolutely chew through all the compressed air you can throw at it
Great job! My 2 cents would be to find the minimum operating pressure of the engine or final engine and I would hook this up to a microprocessor to regulate the fine travel of the diaphragm valve you made to maintain a nice idle speed (rather than fiddling with mixing in the transmitter) - you may have issues with the 15-30 gram servos you have been using to apply enough force, reliably, to have fine control over the motor. Nicolas's suggestion of the venturi setup might get a bit too complex for this scale of engine, but great idea. thanks for posting.
Cerebral Dad not to mention transmitter mixing isn't going to work for him because the power dropoff with compressed air is much steeper than with lipo. He's going to have to keep manually raising his throttle throughout the flight to get the same power. Some form of automatic regulation is necessary, either electronically (with a microcontroller as you suggested) or mechanically (with a spring, rubber band or tensioned wire/strip)
Hey Tom, A great way to check for and find leaks is to put a little soap in a spray bottle and then spray that mixture on the device. If any bubbles form, that’s where you would have a leak. I hope that helps.
Hi Tom. Congrats for the excellent work! I suggest you to add on top of you control valve another pressure control chamber equipped with a tensile spring calculated in such a way that the air from the pressurized air bottle provide a proportional control in order to keep the motor rotation constant. So, when the initial pressure is high, the motor runs with the control valve at the design air pressure position for the piston. As soon as the air (power) pressure reduces, the spring opens proportionally the valve up and the motor keep its rotation constant. You will need to load the pressurized bottle with a pressure higher than the design pressure for the motor pressure chamber.
I was looking for the possibility of using the air as a non-combustible fuel, and this led me to the air engine and did more research until I found this video and got the answers I needed. Thank you.
He should look into an engine like this dipietro compressed air engine. www.engineair.com.au/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2&Itemid=2 Or a quasiturbine engine en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quasiturbine
Awesome work! Maybe to create a throttle that will idle when released put a spring against the lever to hold the diaphragm towards the closed position so that you have to push against the spring to open the throttle. You could adjust it to idle with a spring that way and then have feedback when pushing the throttle open. Just an idea. Can’t wait to see the next video!
There is a better solution than a valve, make a cam that moves and varies in geometry along axis of rotation to vary timing. This will have the same effect with many times more efficiency. The difference is equivalent to the difference between a switch mode power supply and a linear one. ~one electrical engineer
Really really enjoying this compressed air engine series! I like how you're designing each piece to be modular so you can keep making new pieces and insert them in-line with each other. I look forward to the updates and innovations every week, keep it up man!!
You might want to have a look on "this old tony" for a build he did making an air gun for jimmy diresta, he does into reasonable amount of detail on the design of the valve and it's actuated in a similar way to yours.
Good job Tom! You could easily add a servo with a slightly offset circle on it for throttle controls. That would give you the fine control of the valve with a servos full resolution
can you make an rc car out of it ?Attach a reciever connect a servo to the throttle lever make a 3D printed centrifugal clutch finally put them all in a rc car frame?(new challange)
His plane only glides for like 30 seconds. Planes often run 5x longer than a quadcopter, so expect a maximum of 5 seconds. Plus you have to make 4 of those engines, that wouldn't be very entertaining for a 5 second hover.
You really need a tachometer so you can properly check RPM output. You're doing proper engineering without proper measurement! I suspect one of those cheap bicycle computers may be good enough, even.
I thought he already has a tach gun in his kit somewhere? One of the optical ones that uses the reflective tape. (Can't recall which video though. And if it wasn't him, then those aren't all that expensive anyways. Something like $30 for a basic one.)
He doesn't need any of them! Just nice-to-haves for data freaks. If he wanted to maximise peak power he could do it by ear, as it stands he will be running at reduced power so it's unnecessary.
Wonderfull! It runns and throttles! The leaky fittings are typical of the large quick connects, usually due to age of internal o-ring or wear. It can happen on new ones that are simply installed wrong, or have been galled/damaged by installation as well. Since your engines are less than V8 size they really don't go well together with this kind of fitting at all. I sugges you try getting some push-fit air fittings. They come in different sizes for tube outer diameter as well as a free choice of internal threads. Stay at M4 or above for good threading in printed plastics and tap the hole before you screw in the fittings. The fittings usually come with an o-ring to seal the thread as well; mating with the surface of the print and underside of fitting. Depending on the air consumption and pressure I'd suggest trying for something in a 4mm OD which will be quite neat and easy to work with if you need to route and distribute air from a separate tank later. Hoping to see a radial engine next! The airtubes I mention would look great in that! Keep up the great work.
Nice one Tom, the compressor fittings always leak that's common. Possibly go for a needle valve that would give you even finer control and could be produced even simpler. Good work
You may not want to be the 'air powered motor guy/channel' but you can't argue it is phenomenally interesting and I personally would love to see you develop it further. May be build it into a car, truck or even a battle tank. I have watched all your vidz and you have yet to disappoint me, keep up the brilliantly entertaining work mate :D Airpower FTW
If you use a linear stepper motor with a cam to actuate the diaphragm valve and get a greater control range depending on the angle you set the cam. I work with a company that makes flow meters and controllers. The cam actuator can reduce the pressure on the assembly if you use a bearing to hold the cam in place. If you have questions please pm me and i can give you my email. Great work so far! i love watching your videos and seeing your design process. You also can use a stepper to get the linear motion. Converting to a linear motion changes the direction of the forces which makes it easier for you to control.
As a mechanical engineer, you would have more tools than a set of needle nose pliers. Most people who have mechanical leanings would use a spanner or adjustable spanner. Also, are you aware that your vise turns?
Does it really matter? He was nipping up an insignificant adaptor, not working on a nuclear reactor. Also, are you suggesting that an adjustable spanner is a suitable tool for a mechanical engineer? If you look how he's recording the video he has a camera on the table, so better to put a smaller prop on than faff about moving the vice and then have the need to set up a tripod in a small shed.. If you know anything about mechanical engineers that are educated from a degree route you would know that it is an academic route and they are more often than not less well trained in hands on skills as they rarely get their hands dirty unless they did their degree as an extension to an apprenticeship. The fact that he is developing his skills in these projects and giving us some entertaining videos is reason enough for me not to even consider complaining about him using a pair of pliers instead of a spanner.
Thank you for pointing out the incredible shortcomings of many engineer's educations. They often have little or no skills in hands-on work unless they served a practicum or work experience. When they give direction to those who have to build the devices that they design, engineers often lose respect from those who must follow their directions. The result of these clueless directions is often very costly or very dangerous to people associated with the contract. I have taught industrial automation and electronics for 20 years and always include some simple hands-on tool handling and safety in my courses.
That's why people with hands on skills are employed, to fill that skills gap. I am sure if you take the opinion of mechanical engineers you would hear of their dismay at the amount of tradesmen/women who can't follow simple instructions. Given what Tom is doing here I think his efforts are to be applauded rather than mocked. If he keeps up these personal projects he's going to have a very good career.
Pliers vs spanner thing so what Vice yes you should know that it turns And to adjust to pressure output from the compresser you need a to buy a pressure reg! Not the best for them turning it on and off extremely often
Awesome job Tom! Your genuine enthusiasm is really good to watch. You do need to invest in a few tools though! A shifting spanner or two even! ;-) A thread tap set (works well on 3D prints and I also recommend some Locktite thread sealant - that stuff is far better than PTFE tape for sealing air connections etc. Keep up the good work! Looking forward to next week's vid'!
Yea Tom, we knew you could do it, now it's easy to use a servo to control the throttle plus a paintball/BB gun type cartridge for air supply. *Dance the Skies*
Great series of videos. Now you need to figure out how to reverse the throttle action so that your pressure opens instead of closes it. A sprung lever that closes it (to a point that it still idles), with an extension on the opposite side of the fulcrum that acts as your throttle lever, would do the trick.
I don't know if you read comments or not but I have a suggestion. Instead of making the car powered by a propeller, have a driveshaft connected to the cylinder and in order to make it possible to stop the car, make a clutch using flexible filament. I think that would be a lot cooler
You could put a hole about halfway down the throttle lever, and run a screw through it, long enough to bottom out on the throttle plate. You could then adjust this screw up and down to adjust where the lever stops/bottoms out, effectively letting you set the idle speed, so that the engine doesn't stall.
2 Ideas from me: 1) You can stick a little wedge under the lever so it is not posible to choke the engine to stall. 2) The valve can be (after some tweaking) controled by pressure of air in the bottle tank. The more pressure you have, the more engaged the valve will be, thus creating constant power.
The throttle idea is really cool! And it would be easy to design it to work more like a traditional engine where you press to accelerate instead of limit. Might be a good idea to have it work like a recirculation valve instead of just a diaphragm, so the pressure increase has somewhere to go. Very interesting
i love your compressed air engines and how much thought you put into it! keep up the good work i really like your channel and i hope you get more views + subscribers!
Even though you posted this a few weeks ago, When you showed us the Diagram I thought You would have a spring between the piston and the cap on the top, I also though You would have a Lever that would pull the Piton up instead of down to be able to leave the engine off with pressure still on the other side of the valve. The lever I thought you would have in my mind looked something like yours but a hole in the middle and in one end to connect to the piston. Great work keep it up! You just found a new subscriber :)
I also thought you could change the CAD files to have a little bit of a ledge for the lever So you don't stall the engine, Although with your current design if something does wrong all you have to do is mash the button or lever down to stall the engine. Just some thoughts :P
May be a small flywheel would help stabilize the idle, but after the latest additions and it's already getting heavier . Good luck with increasing the performance.
Tom, I've been thinking about the danger involved with spinning the propeller in the field. If you printed an extended knob as the nose cone you could grip that and spin keeping fingers clear of the prop. Just an idea. Stay safe! :)
Suggestion for the throttle, shorten the piston slightly so you can't kill it, but pressing the lever as far as you can will bring it down to an idle. But make the hinge mount a slot and extend the back end of the lever a cm or so, so pressing both the front and back of the throttle lever will be enough to stall it
Have you thought about using brass or steel tube to sleeve the cylinder? Maybe a metal piston ring? Should reduce friction and take stress off the plastic.
Would be cool if you tried making an attachment to run the engine from Co2 cartridge. As the Co2 is in liquid state, the cartridge fits way more gas than the plastic bottle you are using now. Besides, the pressure provided is consant, the vapor pressure of Co2 at a given temperature.
It is always so fun and educational watching your videos. You do such a wonderful job with them it makes me want to run out and get a 3d printer and start making things myself!
I love your compressed air engine videos. You looked absolutely entranced by your throttle haha. Will you add a servo to control the throttle? Can't wait to see how you attach this to a remote controlled car
DANG!!! More complicated, but maybe go the other way round. Push to throttle up, release to return to idle. On the current model, the tiniest of slots in the center, (a minuscule leak between the in and out) to hold idle speed in the engine. Thank you, Tom. ~daniel
Snail-cam on the throttle lever for greater control? Fit engine block to the throttle body the other way up to minimise volume? Flap-valves like a hydraulic ram-pump might deprecate the push rod section? Great seeing your work and feeling like I can interfere with your projects 😉🙈😂
If you were to put a rubber band on your lever you could have it regulate it's self. You could adjust the flow by sliding the rubber band up and down giving it more or less leverage.
I always look forward to your video's and this weeks add on throttle was fantastic, I'm looking forward to the auto start and then multi cylinder engines. :)
For idle control, you could add a small bypass channel that will constantly supply the minimum needed air, unthrottled. Like how an ICE idle adjustment screw works.
That’s wild, I work in a factory making car parts. It’s repetitive; hard honest work but it gives me time to think about stuff. I was thinking about your compressed air engine, and how it would be cool to have a RC car with the same concept!
Really cool! How about adding a lower limit for the throttle lever so that it doesn't cut out the engine when you go past a certain point. Instead it just leaves the engine in idle. Then another valve could be added to open and close the air supply. It would only have to be a small valve just so it can be turned on and off.
Hey throttle turned out great man! Throw a servo on that and set end point for idle. Just looking at it I can vision a flywheel and rc clutch assembly drive system easy route to go. Add a recoil starter to get it started and a tuned pipe too lol. Same principal pump engine that needs to idle.
I wouldn't mind a compressed air engine based channel
Oliver Johansson Make an air engine working car with these motors!! You can now control the thrust!!
Rotary engine??
Multi-cylinder engine next !
The KSPGuy Well they kind of do. A jet engine is basically a gas powered huge compressor.
Purple Chemelon great idea
I just love how you have all the knowledge of university but you keep it simple for us that don't. I do aspire to get a degree in engineering.
Add dry ice in the bottle for longer run time
Raise it to the top!
If this was done in the USA then dry ice. In the UK it's damn near impossible to get as joe public.
Gordon Lawrence really? Why on earth is that? I live in the states and I can get it at my local supermarket.
Anchor Bait It's just not widely used for anything, I don't think it's illegal but it's a bit like buying regular ice, it isn't a common thing here
Main worry with dry ice or LN is that the extreme cold can make the pressure bottle very brittle. (aka. kaboom)
What about clear / transparent filament for the engine block / housing? Could look quite awesome to see the piston and valves operate.
FDM 3D printers have trouble printing anything with any sort of clarity. Translucency is simple, but because of layers and internal geometry clear filament basically makes a heap of tiny lenses that readily hinder transparency. It certainly would be cool to have it clear, but he would need to pursue a different manufacturing technique to do so.
mugsl schlaengli It would melt with any lubricant... Unfortunately...
You are right, but it doesn't have to be perfectly clear. In my experiance with clear PETG you still should be able to see something move inside, which would be good enough (for me at least).
Yeah, that would be cool to see!
@Forever13 pt I just applied some silicon spray on a transparent PETG camera mount i printed some days ago (just to make sure)... nothing melting.
I generaly prefer PETG over PLA.
Tom, did you model threads in the CAD design? Modeling threads, then "cleaning" them up a bit by running a tap down the part before assembly works beautifully.
Your reaction at 12:58 when you realize that your diaphragm design works is absolutely priceless. This is one of the best things about your content. Your personality coming through, your creativity/ideas, and your trial and error approach.
Did you consider a needle valve for fine control? Gate and ball valves are rubbish for precise control, and diaphragms wear and fail.
Three other things:
1)The O-ring seal in the quick-connect fitting on your granddad's air hose might need replacing.
2) Use PTFE tape around the quick connect adapter in your 3D printed mount. This is the type of tape used in natural gas applications (as opposed to the standard teflon tape used in plumbing [fluid] applications).
3) Place a reservoir tank between your granddad's compressor and the air motor. This will deliver smooth air flow vs. surges that are experienced when being fed directly from the compressor (even though there's a pressure regulator in-line).
Also, WD-40 is a brand. Many mistakenly use the original formulation as a lubricant. "WD" is short for water displacement, and 40 designates the 40th formulation. The original WD-40 is actually a solvent, not a lubricant, and shouldn't be used as such.
Lastly, Mr. Stanton, please be sure to always wear your personal protective equipment! Glad the WD-40 didn't hurt your eyes.
Keep up the great work.
John Coloe John Coloe I agree with you on everything except the WD 40 part, the silicone lubricant he is using isn't a solvent (I have tested it extensively with gas powered bolts and pistols) it's just made by the same company and is perfectly safe for plastic/oring applications
Spacemarine, to be fair John Coloe did say the 'original' wd40. But then if he knew this stuff was silicon, it's hard to know what his point was.
Meetim true I was just saying that in case he meant it wasn't lubricant and to clarify for others 👍
The throttle is acting against the pressure unfortunately so you'll need some force to actuate it. While if you go for a sliding orifice plate acting like a kind of venturi, you basically won't have any force required to actuate it. Other idea is if you have a venturi with a sliding orifice plate, you can actually put an atmospheric air intake from the venturi low pressure area to suck ambient air at low speeds. This will increase a lot the range of your motor. The idea is coming from the way inflatable slides are inflated on commercial planes. The compressed air can does not contain enough air to inflate the slide and relies on what I described before to get more air into the slide.
I agree with this and would have used all those terms and special words and everything. Actually I lied, I thought it was the drop down masks using human panic breathing to inflate the slides.
I like that idea. Similar to how the dyson "bladeless" fan works, or how paint spray guns work. The fast moving air draws in more outside air by inducing flow.
or a threaded top part like a tap, so no force needed to keep it closed, and its more controllable
I think there is too much back pressure for a venturi that sucks in athmospheric air; Besides I think he might be able to balance the diaphragm valve by pressurising the top chamber too, balancing out the forces.
This is a good idea... If you are trying to move bulk air in some kind of blower. For a compressed air engine it's a terrible idea. How to explain? In any theoretical engine schematic you have a box (insert engine of any kind here), transferring energy from a source to a sink in order to do work. The point is that you are taking high grade energy and turning it into low grade energy. That's the only way energy flows. In the case of the Dyson or blower, the sink is atmospheric pressure, so your high pressure jet does work accelerating a bunch more air & dumping it to atmosphere. Inside the cylinder of a compressed air engine, the pressure is significantly higher than atmosphere in order to do work forcing the piston down. Once the piston is down, it dumps relatively high pressure air to atmosphere because it's terribly inefficient. But that's an aside. High pressure above the piston: insert your venturi upstream of the piston, guess where the air is going? Yup, backwards out of the venturi. Venturis only work in relatively low pressure environments, or where the flow rate is so high it can create a negative pressure in the venturi tube. The flowrates in this engine are relatively low, so it couldn't work.
I literally went on RUclips to see if you had uploaded a new video, found out you had uploaded one 5 minutes ago with 70 views. I'm psyched! You can make videos about your compressed air engines for the next year as far as I'm concerned.
was this against tom or with tom i dont understand
GBranade totally for Tom, I look forward to his videos every week.
Nice : )
DonCasper yeah this is like my favourite projects
I always marvel at folks that will put all their time and energy into creating/building/inventing and learning about things around them. These are the people (not a whole lot of them) that makes our lives and surroundings easier, better and more accessible. These folks are driven to create solely on their own and have enormous stamina, intelligence and attention to detail to make a thought or dream come true. God bless people like you young man, I hope you live a long exciting and happy life and because of your natural God given talents you will surely do so. I’m 70 years old and have seen and experienced a lot and feel I can speak in this manner. Keep your eyes and mind open Sir. I am now a subscriber and will enjoy all your work, thank you for sharing.
now make it like a 3 or 4 cylinder
Make it a V8 already. u.u
I’d like to see a v twin
And run propane thru it - and light it...
maybe a boxer?
My brother and I watched the first video and we’re still working on a v8
The thing is, this channel is about what you love doing and the people watching your videos love to see you doing what you love doing!
So, don’t be concerned too much with what we want to see and instead just show us what you’re passionate about, what inspires you. That’s the reason why we’re here!
You could add an idle valve like on a carburetted engine. A small hole with rubber and a screw up against it might work. That way you could completely shut down the flow with the throttle without killing the engine.
DonCasper maybe just adding a stop under the throttle lever to leave enough flow in the lowest position is a simpler option.
Well done. Looking forward to the car version of the engine.
Glad to see you finally got a compressor, even if only on loan from your grandfather.
Quick disconnect fittings can leak. I have some touchy ones in my shop. Sometimes it is due to variations of tolerance if the fitting and disconnect are not made by the same company. Sometime the spring gets weak or the seal leaks. I would remove the disconnect and clean it out in case there is dust/dirt on the seal.
Another option for lubrication is a dry teflon spray. Another option for a valve is a needle valve. Back in the days when the UK made cars, lots of cars had Stromberg or SU carburetors. They had needle valves to control the fuel which was mixed with the air.
Dave.
You should put a threaded nut or screw on top of the valve so you can set a speed and leave it
It doesnt fly full throttle. Whats it gonna help with a slower prop?
He needs a pnuematic dental drill head. They use little air compression with high speed and torque. And about 1/4 the weight compared to the mean machine he's ready to work with.
@@AngryHybridApe The point is not for him to make a perfect engine, it’s him having fun and learning. Before you insult his creation, could you design anything better with 3D printing?
@@alrightkewl8235
Ok. I sorry I called it a POS. Studing anything is always a learning process. Wether its what to do or what not to do, somethings you already know, some things you didnt. Sometimes even learn something serendipty and it answers a lot of questions. Always learning.
I love this project! And your enthusiasm is contagious. It makes me wanna leave the job for today and go home and work on my projects
I really think a rotery type engine would work better with air power. Something with multiple chambers that directly drive the prop. Any thoughts on this? I wish I could draw out what I have in my head. But I'm sure you guys could come up with something even better.
Anchor Bait en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotary_engine
There are multiple types of rotary engines. The oldest version had the driveshaft hard mounted to the airframe and the engine and prop spun as a single unit (looks absolutely nuts to modern eyes). Second version is the pistonless or Wankel rotary of RX-7 and RX-8 fame.
There is a third type that gets mistaken for a rotary. This is the Radial engine type that was used in many WW2 era aircraft.
There is a design on Thingiverse for a 5-cylinder Radial engine. It appears to be quite powerful. However, I greatly enjoy watching the development work Tom is doing, and would love to see how far he can push his own creation.
Link? Would be worth checking out their approach to sealing and bearing surfaces.
I was thinking the same. It could be awesome to have a multi cylinder piston engine!!
a vane engine , like they have in air tools, is already optimised, you dont see piston driven air tools!
Seeing your videos has really revamped my motivation to use my 3d printer for fun and neat projects, almost more so than Ivan Miranda, because I only have 1 printer with a small build plate, and most of what he does is huge. Your builds seem more reasonably sized, and with the tolerances and quality I've tuned my printer to, I want to make things like this. You're a brilliant person, and I truly admire the way you and Ivan Miranda tinker, design, model, and print beautiful and functional creations, and that you put in the time to film and edit videos as you do so to share with the rest of the world.
A simple addition but I wholeheartedly agree that's just as cool as the engine itself.
Worth watching just to see Tom's face when he first sees the engine slow down as he pushes down the valve piston, pure joy. Lovely bit of engineering Tom, great!
I’d love to see a V8 air powered engine but that’s a lot of work of course, and would absolutely chew through all the compressed air you can throw at it
Besides your technical talents, you do a very good job of talking to the camera without any awkwardness.
Great job! My 2 cents would be to find the minimum operating pressure of the engine or final engine and I would hook this up to a microprocessor to regulate the fine travel of the diaphragm valve you made to maintain a nice idle speed (rather than fiddling with mixing in the transmitter) - you may have issues with the 15-30 gram servos you have been using to apply enough force, reliably, to have fine control over the motor. Nicolas's suggestion of the venturi setup might get a bit too complex for this scale of engine, but great idea. thanks for posting.
Cerebral Dad not to mention transmitter mixing isn't going to work for him because the power dropoff with compressed air is much steeper than with lipo. He's going to have to keep manually raising his throttle throughout the flight to get the same power.
Some form of automatic regulation is necessary, either electronically (with a microcontroller as you suggested) or mechanically (with a spring, rubber band or tensioned wire/strip)
Hey Tom,
A great way to check for and find leaks is to put a little soap in a spray bottle and then spray that mixture on the device. If any bubbles form, that’s where you would have a leak.
I hope that helps.
Very nice! The leaking from the quick connect is rather normal, especially at lower pressures.
Hi Tom. Congrats for the excellent work! I suggest you to add on top of you control valve another pressure control chamber equipped with a tensile spring calculated in such a way that the air from the pressurized air bottle provide a proportional control in order to keep the motor rotation constant. So, when the initial pressure is high, the motor runs with the control valve at the design air pressure position for the piston. As soon as the air (power) pressure reduces, the spring opens proportionally the valve up and the motor keep its rotation constant. You will need to load the pressurized bottle with a pressure higher than the design pressure for the motor pressure chamber.
14:36 Me when Tom uploads.
That throttle design is great. So nice to see your surprise when it 'just works'.
This channel SHOULD be air engine only. So intresting to watch. Srly cant get enough
I was looking for the possibility of using the air as a non-combustible fuel, and this led me to the air engine and did more research until I found this video and got the answers I needed. Thank you.
Oh man, I can't WAIT to see where you go with the car idea! Can you make a multi-cylinder engine?
He should look into an engine like this dipietro compressed air engine. www.engineair.com.au/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2&Itemid=2 Or a quasiturbine engine en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quasiturbine
Now you just need to invert the lever so when you push down it pulls up. This will allow for a servo to control it via your controller.
I wonder what the engines wear characteristics are or will be like?
like horse power and torque?
More like how long before the moving parts wear out.
Martin Dinner
Correct, I was just wondering how durable the materials are when used as an air engine.
Matthew Duncan Barring accidental friction welding, probably a good long time!
Because the piston is a square i think the edges are gone in a matter of time , because the pressure etc
Awesome work! Maybe to create a throttle that will idle when released put a spring against the lever to hold the diaphragm towards the closed position so that you have to push against the spring to open the throttle. You could adjust it to idle with a spring that way and then have feedback when pushing the throttle open. Just an idea. Can’t wait to see the next video!
There is a better solution than a valve, make a cam that moves and varies in geometry along axis of rotation to vary timing. This will have the same effect with many times more efficiency. The difference is equivalent to the difference between a switch mode power supply and a linear one. ~one electrical engineer
Really really enjoying this compressed air engine series! I like how you're designing each piece to be modular so you can keep making new pieces and insert them in-line with each other. I look forward to the updates and innovations every week, keep it up man!!
You might want to have a look on "this old tony" for a build he did making an air gun for jimmy diresta, he does into reasonable amount of detail on the design of the valve and it's actuated in a similar way to yours.
Also he's funny as hell :D
Good job Tom! You could easily add a servo with a slightly offset circle on it for throttle controls.
That would give you the fine control of the valve with a servos full resolution
can you make an rc car out of it ?Attach a reciever connect a servo to the throttle lever make a 3D printed centrifugal clutch finally put them all in a rc car frame?(new challange)
I'm loving the air engine videos! This throttle component was very cleverly designed, awesome! Looking forward to next week's video!
Those things always leak.
yes those ones, but not the pcl ones, far better
It's a lot of fun watching you design, build and test. Great work!
Since we now have proper throttle control, could we get some kind of self balancing air powered quadcopter
His plane only glides for like 30 seconds. Planes often run 5x longer than a quadcopter, so expect a maximum of 5 seconds. Plus you have to make 4 of those engines, that wouldn't be very entertaining for a 5 second hover.
With a hose attached maybe, but I imagine even the 4 motors and hose might be too much for a VTOL lift.
You could add a small pinprick hole that's always open between the two sides of the diaphragm valve to allow for idle at zero throttle. Great video!
You really need a tachometer so you can properly check RPM output. You're doing proper engineering without proper measurement! I suspect one of those cheap bicycle computers may be good enough, even.
I thought he already has a tach gun in his kit somewhere? One of the optical ones that uses the reflective tape. (Can't recall which video though. And if it wasn't him, then those aren't all that expensive anyways. Something like $30 for a basic one.)
Just analyse the sound frequency spectrum, and you'll guess the engine RPMs!
RPMs and thrust are the two most important things he needs, to get this project REALLY moving. After that, some sort of airflow meter would be good.
He doesn't need any of them! Just nice-to-haves for data freaks. If he wanted to maximise peak power he could do it by ear, as it stands he will be running at reduced power so it's unnecessary.
Wonderfull!
It runns and throttles!
The leaky fittings are typical of the large quick connects, usually due to age of internal o-ring or wear. It can happen on new ones that are simply installed wrong, or have been galled/damaged by installation as well.
Since your engines are less than V8 size they really don't go well together with this kind of fitting at all. I sugges you try getting some push-fit air fittings. They come in different sizes for tube outer diameter as well as a free choice of internal threads. Stay at M4 or above for good threading in printed plastics and tap the hole before you screw in the fittings.
The fittings usually come with an o-ring to seal the thread as well; mating with the surface of the print and underside of fitting.
Depending on the air consumption and pressure I'd suggest trying for something in a 4mm OD which will be quite neat and easy to work with if you need to route and distribute air from a separate tank later.
Hoping to see a radial engine next! The airtubes I mention would look great in that!
Keep up the great work.
4:10 Does the engine have to be pointing downwards? Does it rely on gravity for something? What happens if you turn in upside down?
Yes, there is a ball valve in there that would bot function upside down if its not pressurized
Nice one Tom, the compressor fittings always leak that's common. Possibly go for a needle valve that would give you even finer control and could be produced even simpler. Good work
is there any way we can get the files for this engine, or even buy it? i love it!!
I believe his patreon supporters get access to his STL files
The v3 (without throttle) is here: gumroad.com/l/QUutw
It's $6 or something like that, but you need a 3D printer
1024 thank you sooo muchh!!
You may not want to be the 'air powered motor guy/channel' but you can't argue it is phenomenally interesting and I personally would love to see you develop it further. May be build it into a car, truck or even a battle tank. I have watched all your vidz and you have yet to disappoint me, keep up the brilliantly entertaining work mate :D Airpower FTW
The metal starter is so much convenient compared to your flesh and bones
If you use a linear stepper motor with a cam to actuate the diaphragm valve and get a greater control range depending on the angle you set the cam. I work with a company that makes flow meters and controllers. The cam actuator can reduce the pressure on the assembly if you use a bearing to hold the cam in place. If you have questions please pm me and i can give you my email. Great work so far! i love watching your videos and seeing your design process. You also can use a stepper to get the linear motion. Converting to a linear motion changes the direction of the forces which makes it easier for you to control.
Build a 4 cilinder air engine :D
I love these engine videos, plz dont stop making them, keep up the great work
As a mechanical engineer, you would have more tools than a set of needle nose pliers. Most people who have mechanical leanings would use a spanner or adjustable spanner. Also, are you aware that your vise turns?
Does it really matter? He was nipping up an insignificant adaptor, not working on a nuclear reactor. Also, are you suggesting that an adjustable spanner is a suitable tool for a mechanical engineer? If you look how he's recording the video he has a camera on the table, so better to put a smaller prop on than faff about moving the vice and then have the need to set up a tripod in a small shed.. If you know anything about mechanical engineers that are educated from a degree route you would know that it is an academic route and they are more often than not less well trained in hands on skills as they rarely get their hands dirty unless they did their degree as an extension to an apprenticeship. The fact that he is developing his skills in these projects and giving us some entertaining videos is reason enough for me not to even consider complaining about him using a pair of pliers instead of a spanner.
Thank you for pointing out the incredible shortcomings of many engineer's educations. They often have little or no skills in hands-on work unless they served a practicum or work experience. When they give direction to those who have to build the devices that they design, engineers often lose respect from those who must follow their directions. The result of these clueless directions is often very costly or very dangerous to people associated with the contract. I have taught industrial automation and electronics for 20 years and always include some simple hands-on tool handling and safety in my courses.
That's why people with hands on skills are employed, to fill that skills gap. I am sure if you take the opinion of mechanical engineers you would hear of their dismay at the amount of tradesmen/women who can't follow simple instructions. Given what Tom is doing here I think his efforts are to be applauded rather than mocked. If he keeps up these personal projects he's going to have a very good career.
Pliers vs spanner thing so what
Vice yes you should know that it turns
And to adjust to pressure output from the compresser you need a to buy a pressure reg!
Not the best for them turning it on and off extremely often
Robert Evans I saw that about the vise I would have juat given the hose slack and turned it
Love seeing all the progress on this project. Thanks for being so open with your thought/design process :D
To be honest, i would more love to see videos about the spacex rocket model.
Awesome job Tom! Your genuine enthusiasm is really good to watch. You do need to invest in a few tools though! A shifting spanner or two even! ;-) A thread tap set (works well on 3D prints and I also recommend some Locktite thread sealant - that stuff is far better than PTFE tape for sealing air connections etc. Keep up the good work! Looking forward to next week's vid'!
Make a car toy with engine air and plastic bottle pliss :D
Yea Tom, we knew you could do it, now it's easy to use a servo to control the throttle plus a paintball/BB gun type cartridge for air supply.
*Dance the Skies*
Grease your o-rings
Great series of videos. Now you need to figure out how to reverse the throttle action so that your pressure opens instead of closes it. A sprung lever that closes it (to a point that it still idles), with an extension on the opposite side of the fulcrum that acts as your throttle lever, would do the trick.
Love the enthusiasm, and the knowledge transfer is great too.
It's my favourite! Glad you're still pursuing it
I don't know if you read comments or not but I have a suggestion. Instead of making the car powered by a propeller, have a driveshaft connected to the cylinder and in order to make it possible to stop the car, make a clutch using flexible filament. I think that would be a lot cooler
Love how excited you were when it worked lol, well done, you're one of my favorite channels right now, keep it up
You could put a hole about halfway down the throttle lever, and run a screw through it, long enough to bottom out on the throttle plate. You could then adjust this screw up and down to adjust where the lever stops/bottoms out, effectively letting you set the idle speed, so that the engine doesn't stall.
Awesomeness! Adding a fly wheel should allow you to idle at lower speeds without the engine stalling :)
2 Ideas from me:
1) You can stick a little wedge under the lever so it is not posible to choke the engine to stall.
2) The valve can be (after some tweaking) controled by pressure of air in the bottle tank. The more pressure you have, the more engaged the valve will be, thus creating constant power.
OK, the basic throttle functions. Now it's time for a governor (constant speed, regardless of input pressure variations) - you can do it Tom!
My thoughts precisely. Watt's Governor is still my favourite invention, and could be connected with the prop drive.
That flickering light when you start the compressor... lovely
Half the fun is seeing how happy it makes you to do this stuff👌
Add hall effect sensor and servo to adjust valve postion... awesome videos... love your research!!!
I like these compressed air series, I love your enthousiasm!
The throttle idea is really cool! And it would be easy to design it to work more like a traditional engine where you press to accelerate instead of limit. Might be a good idea to have it work like a recirculation valve instead of just a diaphragm, so the pressure increase has somewhere to go. Very interesting
That's totally the coolest thing ever! Congratulations!! Must be very satisfying
i love your compressed air engines and how much thought you put into it! keep up the good work i really like your channel and i hope you get more views + subscribers!
Great job Tom, I aways say there is nothing you can do as long as you set your mind to do it 👍 🏅
Even though you posted this a few weeks ago, When you showed us the Diagram I thought You would have a spring between the piston and the cap on the top, I also though You would have a Lever that would pull the Piton up instead of down to be able to leave the engine off with pressure still on the other side of the valve. The lever I thought you would have in my mind looked something like yours but a hole in the middle and in one end to connect to the piston. Great work keep it up! You just found a new subscriber :)
Piston**
I also thought you could change the CAD files to have a little bit of a ledge for the lever So you don't stall the engine, Although with your current design if something does wrong all you have to do is mash the button or lever down to stall the engine. Just some thoughts :P
Fascinating stuff, Tom! I've really enjoyed the whole air engine series.
That's awesome. I really like the video, the diaphragm valve is an awesome addition
Love it! If you are planning on putting a compressed air engine in a small car you should attempt to create a 2-4 cylinder engine!
It works so well, you're a great engineer man, next step is to build a 3D printed manual gearbox for the motor :p
I love your vids bro !
May be a small flywheel would help stabilize the idle, but after the latest additions and it's already getting heavier . Good luck with increasing the performance.
Tom, I've been thinking about the danger involved with spinning the propeller in the field. If you printed an extended knob as the nose cone you could grip that and spin keeping fingers clear of the prop. Just an idea. Stay safe! :)
Suggestion for the throttle, shorten the piston slightly so you can't kill it, but pressing the lever as far as you can will bring it down to an idle. But make the hinge mount a slot and extend the back end of the lever a cm or so, so pressing both the front and back of the throttle lever will be enough to stall it
The sound is amazing. Such a tiny motor...
thats honestly amazing how the entire thing is just 3d printed!
Have you thought about using brass or steel tube to sleeve the cylinder? Maybe a metal piston ring? Should reduce friction and take stress off the plastic.
Would be cool if you tried making an attachment to run the engine from Co2 cartridge. As the Co2 is in liquid state, the cartridge fits way more gas than the plastic bottle you are using now. Besides, the pressure provided is consant, the vapor pressure of Co2 at a given temperature.
It is always so fun and educational watching your videos. You do such a wonderful job with them it makes me want to run out and get a 3d printer and start making things myself!
I love your compressed air engine videos. You looked absolutely entranced by your throttle haha. Will you add a servo to control the throttle? Can't wait to see how you attach this to a remote controlled car
DANG!!! More complicated, but maybe go the other way round. Push to throttle up, release to return to idle. On the current model, the tiniest of slots in the center, (a minuscule leak between the in and out) to hold idle speed in the engine. Thank you, Tom. ~daniel
Snail-cam on the throttle lever for greater control?
Fit engine block to the throttle body the other way up to minimise volume?
Flap-valves like a hydraulic ram-pump might deprecate the push rod section?
Great seeing your work and feeling like I can interfere with your projects 😉🙈😂
If you were to put a rubber band on your lever you could have it regulate it's self. You could adjust the flow by sliding the rubber band up and down giving it more or less leverage.
I always look forward to your video's and this weeks add on throttle was fantastic, I'm looking forward to the auto start and then multi cylinder engines. :)
For idle control, you could add a small bypass channel that will constantly supply the minimum needed air, unthrottled. Like how an ICE idle adjustment screw works.
That’s wild, I work in a factory making car parts. It’s repetitive; hard honest work but it gives me time to think about stuff. I was thinking about your compressed air engine, and how it would be cool to have a RC car with the same concept!
Really cool! How about adding a lower limit for the throttle lever so that it doesn't cut out the engine when you go past a certain point. Instead it just leaves the engine in idle. Then another valve could be added to open and close the air supply. It would only have to be a small valve just so it can be turned on and off.
Hey throttle turned out great man! Throw a servo on that and set end point for idle. Just looking at it I can vision a flywheel and rc clutch assembly drive system easy route to go. Add a recoil starter to get it started and a tuned pipe too lol. Same principal pump engine that needs to idle.
excellent work Tom, I am really enjoying watching this progress
Your face when it worked first time 😁 made me smile 👍👌